


To Lay Beside

by fictorium



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Napping, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 01:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12643707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: When you're retired, no one can stop you sneaking a nap in the afternoon.





	To Lay Beside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chainofclovers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/gifts).



If there’s one concession Grace can make to the ageing process, cruel and unfeeling though it can be, it’s that she doesn’t need quite so much sleep. Not at night, anyway. What she would have given for these four and five hour spells that are enough back when Mallory was teething, or when the company had that rocky spell around the last recession. 

The hidden benefit, the one no one ever admits to, is that any deficit can be made up with the most simple of pleasures: an afternoon nap. Grace hasn’t had one on purpose since kindergarten, possibly, but in her new role as a lady of leisure it’s entirely up to her what two martinis at lunch and a comfortable sofa might lead to. 

Only now home is a beach house instead of an impeccably-styled mausoleum with hardwood floors, and the couch isn’t her domain until Robert crawls home from work when the evening is all but over. Or screwing Saul, as she’s since come to learn. That narrative never seems to stick, no matter how true she knows it to be. 

Still, what’s one more compromise in a world full of nothing quite as she wants it? When the post-lunch stupor begins to creep over her, Grace kicks off her heels and tiptoes upstairs to her room with them in hand. It’s not going to bed if she lies on top of the comforter, covered only by the purple throw that’s usually relegated to the chair in the corner. The pillow is barely beneath her cheek before the world fades out.

When she wakes, it’s still light at least. She’s a little too warm, just past cosy, but it doesn’t matter so much when the arm around her waist tenses and pulls her a little closer. Grace isn’t planning to get up just yet. Not until her bladder insists, as it inevitably will. Another little cruelty.

Except.

Wait a damn minute. Whose arm, exactly? Even at the closest they’d come to a real marriage, Robert had always slept with his back turned to her, a chasm between them on the mattress. Her anxiety spikes, the world reduced to the body pressed against her and the arm that pins her in place. Breathe, Grace. It’s Frankie’s voice she hears in her head. Breathe.

And as she does, she pats tentatively at the intruding arm. She’d know that hellish fabric anywhere. There’s even some drying paint on the cuff, just to confirm it.

“Frankie?”

“Hnnng.” 

“Frankie, I don’t remember inviting you into my bed.” Grace turns around to face her, somehow not caring to remove the arm that holds her so close. “This is my nap, and here you are crashing it.”

Frankie opens one eye, suspicious. “You’ve never crashed a party in your life, have you? Never gone to so much as a pool party without an engraved RSVP.”

“You have a perfectly serviceable bed of your own.” If she were standing this is the point where Grace would fold her arms, waiting for one foot to start tapping. Instead she reaches out to gently touch Frankie’s face, telling herself that it’s just to make sure there’s no wet paint that could transfer to clothing or bedding. “What’s so appealing about mine?” A whisper. A question she’s been trying not to ask.

“It has you in it, Grace.” Sometimes it would be easier if Frankie were more keen on lying. If she had some guile behind those startling blue eyes, an agenda of some kind that Grace could blame this surge in her chest on. It feels like the first deep breath after getting out of the city smog and down to the ocean. It feels like peace, and maybe belonging. Grace is going to have to ask someone, because she’s never been quite sure how that last one goes.

“I was napping,” Grace explains, although they both know that already. “What else is there to do on a Thursday afternoon?”

“Well…” Frankie leans in, moving her arm from Grace’s waist at last, only to place her hand on top of Grace’s, where it’s still cupping Frankie’s cheek. Her skin really is amazing, far better than it has any right to be. “We could always try this.”

When Frankie kisses her, it’s a question. A tender meeting of lips that doesn’t push or demand, doesn’t seem rote, like there’s a manual somewhere with a set of instructions. It’s a delicate thing, a whisper of reassurance and a promise that the water’s fine.

Grace kisses back, and it’s something more. A question answered, an ache that’s soothed. This isn’t what she expected all this time later. This isn’t who she expected to be.

And that? Might just be the best part about it. She tangles her fingers in Frankie’s hair, still so thick despite the silver running through it at all those intervals. They kiss again, and again, until Grace feel her eyes drooping just a little. She’s always felt sleepy when she’s happy. Frankie smiles at her, hugging her close and rubbing a thumb back and forth on Grace’s temple.

When she falls asleep this time, it’s with a smile on her face.


End file.
